The Doctor's Children
by calgarry
Summary: AU in which John and Harry Watson aren't quite human. Or from Earth. And they both picked up the Doctor's love for danger and adventure. No slash, just friendship. Updated occasionally rather than frequently.
1. The many lives of John Watson

**A/N: So in this story, Harry is based heavily on Jenny, the Doctor's Daughter (s4e6), but with a different backstory. This first chapter is mostly background. Hope you enjoy, and please remember to review!**

* * *

John Watson has lived a very long and varied life. Well, lives technically. Five, to be precise. He's on his sixth now.

His sister, Harry, is on her eighth life, despite being almost a hundred years younger than her brother.

John Watson is currently on Earth, taking a break. Harry, as far as he knows, is still touring around the stars, getting into all sorts of trouble. That's what she normally does, anyway.

They haven't been in contact for a while, fifteen years or so. Because of this, John is very surprised when he gets a call from his sister out of the blue, when he is in the middle of a case involving none other than Sherlock Holmes.

-o0o-

I suppose I should start at the beginning of John's story. Or at least, the beginning of this part of John's story.

It started after the Time War. John and Harry stumbled out of their father's TARDIS, coughing and choking on the smoke. They turned around and looked back at the figure in the smoke, waving goodbye to them. "I'll be fine," he said. "Save yourselves. I'll save the universe."

"Dad, no!" Harry shouted, and ran forward, but she was too late. The TARDIS had vanished.

John walked forwards and laid a hand on her shoulder. "He'll be fine, Harry. He always is."

"He can't save our planet alone," she said, staring at the space where the TARDIS had been.

"He'll work something out." She didn't move. "Harry, we have to go. People will be coming along soon, to investigate the smoke."

Finally, she turned around. "Where are we?"

"Appalappachia," he told her, having recognised the place when they arrived. "I think he wanted to drop us somewhere beautiful, and friendly, and safe."

She sniffed, and fiercely wiped away a single tear that had fallen, unbidden, onto her cheek. "That's just like him."

"Let's go," he said again, and this time she followed him away, out of the smoke.

-o0o-

They split up soon after that, each going their own way. Harry stole a spaceship almost straight away, going for a 'cruise around the universe'. She would try to find their father as well, but neither would admit it. Instead. John waved her goodbye with a bittersweet smile.

He tried to copy her at first, half-heartedly going to the typical tourist sites. The Planet of the Coffee Shops. The planet Midnight. The emerald caves of Poosh. The thrice-stolen gate of Yupatrom. But rattling around the galaxy became boring, after a while. So John went to Earth instead.

He wandered around England for a while, trying to find a purpose. He began to use his old surname alias again, Watson, which he had stolen from a gravestone centuries earlier.

Eventually, John found himself in the middle of another war, this time in Afghanistan. Just his luck, to escape one war to end up in another, albeit much smaller, war. He tried not to, but he found himself comparing this war each day to the Time War. He found himself thinking that humans knew nothing about war, nothing about the true destruction and terror it could bring. These little battles, these petty fights, were nothing compared to what his planet and his people had experienced.

After some time, John found these thoughts unbearable. He tried to be brave and strong and noble, like his father, but he could not. So he got himself shot.

He could have healed quickly using his regeneration energy, but this would have made the humans suspicious. Instead, he forced himself to heal slowly, leaving a scar in his shoulder that he knew would be there until his next regeneration. It hurt a lot, of course, but it was better than the alternative.

John was sent back to England, and after a while encountered a curious mystery on a website. He read further, and discovered a man who shouldn't have existed, yet somehow did. John resolved to investigate further. Perhaps that would bring some purpose back into his lives.

-o0o-

Being at the centre of time and space had its advantages. John knew that he needed to be walking through a particular park on a particular date, and so he did, hobbling along on his unnecessary cane.

"John? John Watson?"

He turned around to see a familiar face. "Stamford. Mike Stamford," the man introduced himself. "We were at Bart's together."

Of course he remembered him, from much earlier in this life. Before the Time War, even. However, a human might not have remembered. "Yes, sorry, yes, Mike. Hello, hi," John said. They shook hands.

"Yeah, I know. I got fat!" Mike laughed, gesturing to himself.

"No," John lied easily.

"I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at," Mike said conversationally. "What happened?"

"I got shot." It was the truth, after all.

Mike bought John a coffee (how quaint), and they sat on a bench together. They talked about London and army pensions, then Mike mentioned Harry. John felt a lump in his throat. Where was she? Was she still alive? Had she found Dad?

He pushed the thoughts aside to focus on the conversation. Eventually, Mike offered him a landline: a flat share in central London. John seized it with both hands. Mike took him to the hospital where they used to study, hundreds of years earlier for John, only a few decades for Mike.

They went into a lab with a man who seemed unremarkable at first. Just another scientist. However, the instant he opened his mouth, John was certain he had the right man. The calmness, confidence, even the stance was the same.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

He began to deduce things about John. Little things, such as the fact he had been an army doctor, and he had a brother called Harry (sister actually, but close enough, John decided). He got some things wrong, though: he thought Harry was an alcoholic, when it had been Clara; and he thought John's limp was psychosomatic when it was merely put on. What he didn't deduce was that John was an alien from another planet, or that he had died five times before. In other words, nothing important.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street."

John was certain he had the right man. Now all he had to do was wait until the next evening to see him again, and hopefully gain some more information.

-o0o-

Sure enough, the next day, John found himself moving in with Sherlock Holmes, the man who shouldn't exist. Not only that, before long they were chasing around half of London after a mysterious criminal, who turned out to be a taxi driver, of all people.

When they were running, John found himself so caught up in the chase that he completely forgot to keep limping. Sherlock noticed this, of course. However, his arrogance meant that he thought he had cured John, who was only too happy to let him keep thinking that.

Life continued on, and John and Sherlock ran around together, being a modern-day detective and sidekick. John was fully aware of his role as sidekick, and kept a blog of his and Sherlock's adventures, true to form with his literary counterpart. He was careful not to seem too intelligent, instead working extra hard to keep up the human façade, even becoming a doctor (oh, the irony).

As soon as he saw Sarah, he had a feeling about her, similar to when he knew he had to be in the park to meet Mike. She would be important, he could tell; so he asked her out on a date, which went predictably pear-shaped. He kept going out with her afterwards as well, of course, because she was a nice person.

As John and Sherlock ran around, chasing Chinese gangsters and consulting criminals, John realised that he was feeling more alive than he had in years. He felt as if he had a purpose, aside from being the Doctor's son. Here, he wasn't saving planets or fighting civilisations. Instead, he was solving problems that were much smaller, but equally as important.

It was something of a surprise to him when Sherlock revealed that he didn't care about the human lives he was saving. John stormed out, but almost as soon as he was outside, he decided to put it down to ignorance. He was putting a lot down to ignorance, these days.

He was only a few streets away from Sarah's flat when somebody crashed into him from behind, pushing him over and pinning him down. He struggled, but they injected something into his neck to knock him out. It didn't work, of course, but he pretended to be asleep anyway. It was easier than explaining.

When he 'came to', he was in a cubicle near what smelled like a swimming pool. Someone had roughly shoved an overcoat on him with explosives. _Well, this is new_, he thought resignedly as he waited for something to happen.

And sure enough, it did. Sherlock arrived, and John had to briefly pretend to be Moriarty before Molly's gay boyfriend revealed himself. While he and Sherlock were talking, John saw an opportunity and took it, grabbing Moriarty's throat from behind. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to stop any more deaths. He knew that if Moriarty was allowed to live, there would be more murders, as per the original books. "Sherlock, run!"

He didn't run, of course. Just John's luck. And to top it off, Moriarty had snipers aiming at both of them. Now, if there was one thing John was not going to let happen, it was Sherlock Holmes dying. So he stepped back, and left his fate in Sherlock's hands. Again.

The conflict was temporarily resolved, and life continued on. John barely had time to think about the family he had left behind as he and Sherlock investigated a dominatrix and an imaginary dog, of all things.

The dog, incidentally, turned out to be the result of a hallucinatory drug, which was so potent it that even worked on Time Lords. There weren't many Earth substances that could do that. John made a mental note to investigate it further if he had a chance.

However, all thoughts of suspicious drugs were pushed aside when one day, out of the blue, John received a call from none other than Harry Watson.

-o0o-

"John! I need a pen!" Sherlock called. There was no answer.

He opened his mouth to call out again, but stopped when he remembered something John had said a while ago, about not always being in the room. Sighing, he sat up and made his way upstairs to John's room, grumbling internally all the way.

Sherlock stopped outside John's room, and was raising a hand to knock when he heard voices coming through the closed door. He leaned closer and listened.

Inside, John held up a small hand-held device that resembled a smartphone. He was looking at a women, her pale blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail, her large mouth in a cheeky grin. "…not the best time, Harry," he was saying apologetically.

She wasn't looking at him, instead focusing on the spaceship controls in front of her. "Guess what I'm doing."

"Are you going to get arrested again?" he asked resignedly.

Harry glanced up at the camera, before returning her attention to the control panel. "Only if I'm caught, Johnny."

John pursed his lips, then ventured to ask a carefully veiled question. "And dad won't find out?"

"Nah. Said he's busy for the next week," she said casually.

John suppressed a frown at the news that she'd spoken to their father. "Rule one," he reminded her. "He lies."

This time, Harry looked up at her brother and grinned widely. "Rule number four, John. The fun is in the chase."

He sighed exasperatedly. "Why now, Harry? It's been years, for me. Longer for you, I can tell. Why are you ringing me now?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "I got bored."

John snorted. "When you're bored, Harry, you don't call me. You go and fight some Raxicoricofallapatorians, or liberate some Tivolians, or something."

Harry opened her mouth to answer, then glanced above the camera, to another monitor. "Incoming!" she yelled suddenly, and hit a button. John's screen went blank.

He sighed and dropped his arm, knowing that she would contact him as soon as she could, whenever that would be. He gave up worrying long ago.

Outside the door, Sherlock withdrew silently, and slipped downstairs. He lay back on the sofa, and settled down to think about some of the strange things John had said.

Nothing came of these strange things for a while. It was a long time before Harry contacted John again. During that time, Sherlock became famous.

When they discovered the painting of the Reichenbach Falls, John became uneasy, remembering the original Conan Doyle story with the same place. However, he brushed off his misgivings, reassuring himself that it was probably a coincidence. Probably.

Instead, John committed himself to working with Sherlock. He had hoped they would be finished with Moriarty, but then the psychopath returned, this time with a vengeance. Again, the Reichenbach Falls niggled at John's conscience, but he did his best to block it out, rather than preparing for the worst. He was getting good at that.

-o0o-

Then one day, the worst happened. John got out of the cab outside St Bart's hospital, only to receive the phone call that would change his life.

He watched Sherlock jump, watched him fall to the bitter end. He went numb. _No,_ he thought. _You weren't going to get involved._ The memory of 'The Final Problem' returned to him in a flash, and he knew somehow that Sherlock was gone.

Still, he allowed himself to stagger forward numbly, thinking, _no. It's not possible. No._

Over the days, weeks, months that followed, John merely went through the actions of living, going to work, meeting friends. Or rather, that was what he let everybody think.

Whenever someone mentioned Sherlock, John thought back and allowed the pain of the loss of his planet, his family, and his entire race to wash over him. When people saw the true pain in his eyes, they would usually stop talking, which suited John just fine.

He often felt frustrated, thinking about Sherlock. Sometimes he would go into a rage, yelling and throwing things around his new flat. Once the neighbours had called the police, scared that he was having a fight. The rage of a Time Lord was strong on any planet.

The thing was, John had come _so close_ to finding out the secret, he was sure. He had been _so close_ to fulfilling his new purpose in life. And then Sherlock had died, just like that. It wasn't fair.

Eventually, John got tired of living on Earth, waiting to die so he could regenerate and leave. There was no way he could just disappear off into space, he was in too far. He could of course pretend to kill himself and then leave, but that would not be fair to those he was friends with. He had learnt his lesson on doing that to people, from Sherlock. Lessons from a dead man, now that was new.

There was still no word from Harry.

Then everything changed when the beautiful Mary Morstan appeared in his life. John had clung for so long onto the hope that Sherlock would return, but was beginning to give up. Maybe the events of 'The Empty House' would not happen. Maybe Sherlock was gone, and John was stuck on Earth for the rest of this life, playing the grieving widow.

After he met Mary, John became certain that Sherlock would return. For how could the story be continuing, if the main character was dead?

True to form, John got to know Mary better, and eventually asked her to marry him. Or at least, he tried to.

For that was the night that Sherlock Holmes returned from the dead.

John was sitting, reading the menu. An annoying waiter came up to him and started to push the wine menu in his face, which in itself was strange; the waiters at this restaurant were usually very reserved.

Then the waiter spoke again. John concentrated on the voice, and recognised it almost instantly. _The bastard_, he thought, but didn't say anything. Instead, he pretended not to recognise Sherlock, relishing the thought of how the detective's face must look.

Before Mary came downstairs, John had time to think about how he would react when Sherlock properly revealed himself. He could of course have merely fainted, like Watson had in the book. However, he decided to go for the more fun option of attacking him.

Life managed to continue on. John and Mary got married, eventually, and lived together with the promise of a child. John still hadn't told Mary who he was. He realised he would have to say something before the baby was born. He should have told her earlier, he knew. But how does one find the right time or place to tell one's wife that one is an alien, chasing the trail of a best friend who shouldn't even exist?

His life was thrown into turmoil once more when Sherlock was shot by an unknown assassin, and flat lined in hospital. No sooner had John recovered from the relief that his friend has survived, then he found the identity of the assassin: his wife, Mary Morstan.

John became angry. Really angry. Both with Mary, for not saying anything; and with himself, for not noticing himself that Mary was not who she said she was. Of course Sherlock had worked it out. Perfect Sherlock.

After John's anger, he realised that he had become too caught up in living with Mary, and with being human. He resolved to focus back on his original case, and so he moved back into 221B Baker Street, under the pretence of temporarily leaving Mary.

John turned up on the doorstep of 221B in the rain, with a packed suitcase and a desperate expression. Sherlock let him in immediately, and even helped him to get his old room ready to live in.

Exactly two months later, John received a video call from Harry.


	2. Panic! in the TARDIS

Sherlock was experimenting on the kitchen table. John was reading the newspaper on his armchair. Mrs Hudson was downstairs, taking her 'herbal soothers'. All was well.

Suddenly, there was a buzzing in John's pocket. He surreptitiously withdrew his hand-held device and checked it.

Harry's face grinned up at him from the screen. He motioned for her to be silent, eyes widening; then got up quietly from his chair and hurried up to his room, muttering something like, "Got to check my email."

Sherlock seemingly paid no attention, concentrating hard on his titration. As soon as John closed his bedroom door, however, his head snapped up, and he stood up silently as a mime and followed John upstairs.

John sat again on his bed, door open a crack. Sherlock eased it open as much as possible without it creaking, then concentrated on the voices from within.

"…last time," Harry was saying apologetically. "Ran into some Vogons. Well, I say _ran into_. It's entirely possible they were trying to get their ship back."

John rolled his eyes, but he was grinning. He looked happier, and more at ease, than Sherlock had seen him in a long time. "I thought you weren't going to steal anything else, after that run-in with the Judoon?"

"You make me sound like a felon, John," she said, pretending to be hurt.

"Why have you called this time?" he asked her. "I thought you would call me sooner."

"Yeah, sorry about that," she said. "Got distracted. Anyway, I need your help."

"With what?"

She pursed her lips and leaned forward conspiratorially. "I lost Dad. I've been looking for him for months. And I've found him now. Well, sort of. I need your help."

John started to look excited, but caught himself. "I can't Harry. I'm in the middle of a case. A big one."

"I'm intrigued. Tell me more."

"There's a man, here in 2010, by the name of Sherlock Holmes. He's a detective."

Harry laughed. "That's a heck of a coincidence."

John didn't smile. "That's the thing, you see. It's not. The Sherlock Holmes we know, Conan Doyle's character – he doesn't seem to exist anymore. I've looked everywhere, and he's just…gone. There are no records of the fictional detective. The only Sherlock Holmes now is my flatmate."

She frowned. "But that's simply not possible."

"Like it or not, that's how it is," John said grimly. "So I'm here, trying to figure out what happened. I can't go off for long periods of time, Harry. I have a life here now. And a wife," he added as an afterthought.

Harry didn't mention the wife, instead studying him almost pityingly. "You have been gone a while, haven't you? We're _Time Lords_, John. We control time, not the other way around. You can go away for years, and be back in time for tea."

John's face slowly began to brighten as he remembered. "When can you meet me?"

She smiled. "That's the spirit. Now, London…are you anywhere near St. Bart's Hospital?"

"Right around the corner, almost," he said. "But why there, of all places?"

Harry shrugged. "I have history there. Be on the rooftop, 10am tomorrow. We're going on a Dad-hunt!"

They both laughed, then Harry terminated the connection. John sat back with a smile on his face. He could practically taste the adventure waiting for him the next day. Sherlock, meanwhile, slipped back downstairs noiselessly, to think over what he had heard.

The next morning, John put on his coat. "I'm just going out, Sherlock," he called into the living room. "Back in time for tea."

Sherlock didn't move from his position lying on the couch. He gave no indication of having heard John, who sighed and went outside. He stopped and did up his coat, pretending to shiver in the cool winter air.

A second after the front door banged shut, Sherlock's eyes flew open. He swung his legs around and stood up, hurrying downstairs and pulling on his coat. The door closed silently behind him.

-o0o-

John stood in the middle of the rooftop, looking around impatiently. Eventually, there was a _vworp, vworp_ sound behind him, and he spun around.

The blue box stood behind him in all its glory, lights shining brightly. John felt his hearts leap, but kept a neutral facial expression.

The door squeaked open, and Harry poked her head out, looking around until she saw him. She was wearing a green T-shirt and black trousers, with practical boots, just like normal. She hadn't changed a bit since John had last seen her, despite decades passing for her. She looked a little older around the eyes, but aside from that, there was no change.

Upon seeing John, her mouth formed into a large smile, which faltered when she saw his face. "And what sort of a time do you call this?" he asked disapprovingly, tapping his watch.

Harry glanced at hers. "Two minutes past ten," she said, before looking up at him guiltily.

John mock-tutted at her tardiness, then stopped and grinned. He crossed the space between them in two bounds, and pulled her into a tight hug. "It's good to see you," he murmured into her ear.

"You too, Johnny," Harry said, returning the hug. Then she pulled back and held him at arm's length. "How've you been? You look terrible."

"Thanks," John told her. "I've been really good, actually. Life's slow here, but that suits me just fine. I wanted to settle down, you know, after the War."

She nodded. "Yeah, I feel the same." John raised an eyebrow, and she elaborated. "Not in the same way as you, of course. Just…wanting to get away, to do something different. So I travelled the universe, while you shut yourself up in this little country."

"Don't let Dad hear you calling it little," John warned. "He's very fond of this place. And so am I."

"I can tell," Harry said, indicating the wedding ring on his finger. "What's her name, then?"

John hid his hand behind his back bashfully. "Mary. Mary Morstan."

Harry wanted to laugh, but noticed that John seemed tense when talking about Mary. She decided to change the subject. "Can you show me where you live? You said it was just around the corner, right?"

He nodded and led her over to the edge of the roof. He put an arm around her shoulders and pointed. "See that red roof there? I live right behind that, at the moment."

She frowned. "Bit small, isn't it?"

"Says the woman who's flying around in a telephone box."

She laughed. "Point taken."

It was John's turn to change the subject. "You said you'd found Dad."

Harry's smile vanished, and her face turned grim. "Yeah. Well. Sort of. I found his TARDIS."

John raised an eyebrow. "I can see that. Is this all you've got? His TARDIS?"

"Well, that's not all!" she said defensively. "There's also a warning inside, but I can't understand it."

"So you thought I could help you."

"I think Dad's in trouble, John. We could save him. Think of all the times he's saved us. Saved other people, other civilisations, all around the galaxy. And now we can help him. What do you say, Johnny? One last adventure?"

He smiled. "In that case, how could I possibly refuse?"

Harry held out her small hand, and John took it in his larger one. Together, they walked towards the blue box, and went in the open door.

John stopped inside the door and looked around the control room. "He's redecorated."

"I know," Harry said, skipping over to the console. "I don't like it either."

He shrugged, following her to the middle of the room. "It's okay, I guess. How've you been, old girl?" he asked, this time talking to the console which reached up to the ceiling.

It mumbled in response, lights flashing. "It's been a long time for you, hasn't it?" John said in the way someone might talk to a well-loved pet. "I've missed you."

Over the other side of the room, Harry frowned. "John, take a look at this."

He hurried around the console. "What's up?"

She pointed. "There's a strange warning on the projector. It's saying there's another person on here, but they're unidentifiable."

"Impossible," John told her. "A TARDIS can identify anything."

"Not this person. It doesn't even know where on the ship they are."

He glanced around, suddenly gripped by fear. "So you're telling me that there's someone else here, and they could be anywhere?"

Harry nodded worriedly. "Swimming pool, library, broom closet, even that little room that has nothing in it except for a sink."

John noticed another alert, and read it quickly. "The TARDIS is panicking. It's going to shut down any second now."

As he said the last word, all the lights turned off simultaneously, and the engine sounds froze. The only light was the soft glow of the console, barely enough for the siblings to make out each other's faces.

They looked at each other, then slowly turned so they were standing back-to-back, staring out into the darkness. Harry reached her hand back to grasp John's. "I'm scared," she whispered.

"So am I," he admitted in a whisper. "I'm hoping I'll wake up and this will be a bad dream."

There was a pause when neither spoke. After a moment, John said, in a slightly louder voice, "I don't see how this is possible. I didn't think there was a creature that was undetectable to the TARDIS. I've certainly never met one."

Harry had just opened her mouth to agree with him when a very familiar voice spoke. "Actually, John, you have."

They both spun around to see a figure on the other side of the console, the view distorted through the glass of the rotor. It moved to the side, and John took an involuntary step backwards.

For standing there, the dim light of the console casting green shadows upon his face, was none other than Sherlock Holmes.

Harry froze, her eyes narrowing. "Who are you?" she demanded.

John seemed lost for words. He blinked once, twice, and shook his head. Then he cleared his throat. "Sher- Sherlock?"

"Hello, John," the consulting detective replied in his rumbling baritone.

Harry was staring between them. "You're Sherlock Holmes? John's flatmate? How did you get in here?"

He looked at her. "You left the door open when John was showing you where we live. I merely slipped in while you weren't looking."

"You gave the TARDIS a panic attack!" she told him indignantly.

Sherlock addressed them while walking down the stairs towards them. "Ah, yes, the TARDIS. Your ship?" he inquired, popping the 'p'. "Very nice ship. It appears to be bigger on the inside. Or is it smaller on the outside?" He stopped, one hand resting lightly on the console. "Either way, it seems impossible. Like the conversation you had yesterday. I heard you, John.

"You know," he continued, "all this time, I've been searching for cases to keep me occupied. However, all this time, there was a case, a big case, sitting in front of me drinking tea. The case of John Watson."

Sherlock was leaning right in towards John, staring into his eyes. John did not move, just stayed where he was, staring right back at Sherlock.

"Go on then," he said. "You're good at deductions. Deduce me."

Sherlock frowned, continuing to display his total disregard for personal space. "You're very old, aren't you?"

John stared back at Sherlock unflinchingly. "Older than you will ever be," he said, much more calm than he had been less than a minute earlier.

"There's so much in your eyes," Sherlock mused, straightening up. "I thought it was the war, but there's more than that, isn't there?"

"These eyes have seen things you can only imagine, Sherlock Holmes. Countless horrors from beyond this world."

"What Harry said to you yesterday, about time. 'We control time, not the other way around.' What did that mean?"

John pursed his lips. "I'm not who you think I am. I'm not even what you think I am. I'm not human, nor is Harry."

"What are you then?"

"Time Lords," Harry said from behind Sherlock. He spun around to see her staring up at him. "Aliens, at least to you. We're from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous. We are each hundreds of years old, and currently looking for our father, who is closer to a thousand years old. Oh, and we're standing in a spaceship and time machine, which appears much smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. Any more questions?"

Sherlock considered her. "Harriet Jennifer Watson, I presume?"

She nodded. "That's my name in English."

"And in your language?"

"Names have power," she said simply.

He frowned. "You're not an alcoholic."

She smiled slightly, for the first time wince Sherlock had revealed himself. "What's John been telling you?"

"He didn't tell me anything. His phone did."

Harry looked over at John. "Are you still using that old one Clara Oswin gave me?"

He shrugged. "It fits with the time period."

Sherlock spoke up. "Time, yes. Time Lords. Aliens that control time, or so you say. Tell me, how exactly does that work?"

John sighed. "This ship. The TARDIS. Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

Sherlock turned to Harry. "You said it appeared to be smaller on the outside. Why 'appeared'?"

"The blue box on the outside is a gateway," she explained. "This is another dimension we're in now."

"And how big is a dimension?"

"Infinite."

Sherlock nodded vaguely, and glanced around. John sighed again, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Sherlock. What are you doing here?"

"You mentioned a mystery. I'm here to solve it."

"You're the mystery," Harry said. "You shouldn't exist. You don't exist, according to the TARDIS. You have mass, but you do not exist."

"Speaking of the TARDIS," John said, "we should probably try to get some more lights on." He reached over and flipped a few switches, then typed something into the keyboard. The lights flickered on, and they could see each other properly for the first time.

"How can I not exist?" Sherlock asked calmly. However, John could see that Sherlock looked almost worried, an alien emotion for the normally calm, in-control man.

Harry shrugged in answer to his question. "How can you be in an infinitely large telephone box talking to two aliens, one of whom was your flatmate for years?"

John took pity on Sherlock and explained. "How well do you know the works of Arthur Conan Doyle?"

"Reasonably well. I read most of his stories in university."

"Well, in the world that Harry and I know, his most famous stories are about a Victorian detective called Sherlock Holmes. He has a friend called Doctor John H. Watson, and a landlady called Mrs Hudson. Dr Watson narrates all the stories but four. Is this sounding at all familiar?"

Sherlock was frowning. "But that's impossible."

"Yeah. Welcome to our world," said Harry.

He looked around the TARDIS, then back at the siblings. "So I'm a copy, then? A copy of this fictional detective?" He stared at John, a helpless look in his eyes.

John put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, but it appears you are."

"How about Moriarty? If I wasn't around, he wouldn't have been stopped all those times."

"He was in the books as well," Harry said gently. "So was Mrs Hudson, so was Lestrade, so was Mycroft, so was Irene Adler, so was John."

"So you're a copy as well?" Sherlock asked John quickly.

"Not really. My name isn't Watson, it's just a name I picked up from a gravestone. I'm fulfilling a prophecy, more than anything else."

"But why? And how? How do I know you're not lying to me?"

Harry picked a book up off the console and chucked it to Sherlock. He caught it easily, and scanned the cover. "The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle," he read. "'A Sherlock Holmes Mystery'. Is this where you get the titles for your blog from, John?"

John blinked. "Um, yes," he said. "You don't seem very surprised."

"So, your ship doesn't recognise me because I don't exist?" Sherlock asked Harry, changing the subject.

She blinked. "That's right. John just told her that you were safe, so she's stopped panicking."

"Your ship is female?"

"Essentially, she's a matrix inside a machine. It's hard to explain. She can hear us talking, when she wants to."

The TARDIS console rumbled and a few lights flashed, as if agreeing with the statement.

Sherlock opened his mouth to ask another question, when the floor suddenly started to shake. The ship lurched, unbalancing everyone first one way, then the other.

Harry and John grabbed the console with practised ease. "What was that?" Harry shouted over the sudden noises from the TARDIS.

"Turbulence in the time vortex," John replied, checking the monitor.

"But we're not in the time vortex!" Harry yelled in confusion.

John grabbed a hammer from under the console, and whacked the console. The ship slowly stabilised itself.

"I think she took us there to shake off the intruder," he said, when things were calm enough for him to be heard. "Without asking, I might add," he said pointedly, glaring at the time rotor.

"Speaking of the intruder," Harry asked, "where is he?"

John glanced around. Sure enough, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. "Sherlock?" he yelled, suddenly worried.

He was answered by a low groan from the other side of one of the coral struts. "Sherlock!" John said anxiously, running around to see him.

The detective was lying on the floor, head resting against the coral strut. He had apparently been thrown through two branches by the jolting. His eyes were closed. "Can you hear me?" John asked clearly. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock's eyes flickered open at the sound of John's voice. He tried to sit up, but could not. "I…I'm not sure," he said shakily.

Harry had followed John, and was also crouching at Sherlock's side. "John," she said urgently, "he's bleeding."

John looked at the back of Sherlock's head, where his sister was pointing to, and cursed in Gallifreyan. "Let's get him to the med bay."

Together, the Time Lords carefully picked Sherlock up and carried him through the door into the corridor, despite his protestations. John sat him down on a small bed, while Harry opened a cupboard and looked inside.

"I'm fine, John," Sherlock complained.

"You've got a deep cut," John told him. "You would need stitches for that."

"'Would'?" Sherlock asked. "I don't need stitches because…?"

"Because of this," Harry said, walking over to them holding a small bottle like a medicine bottle. She gave it to John, who took off the lid and poured some liquid onto a cotton ball. Sherlock could swear it was smoking.

"This won't hurt a bit," John said, before gently wiping the cut with the cotton ball.

"Ouch!" Sherlock said, and jerked backwards. "That did hurt!"

"I lied," John said calmly, putting the lid back on the bottle.

"What was it?" Sherlock asked, gently touching the area where the cut was. It appeared to be healed.

"On a basic level, it melts your skin and fuses it back together. You don't want to know the details," Harry explained.

"Nice," the detective commented.

"You should sleep now," John said worriedly. "The serum isn't intended for human use, and you might experience some side effects."

Sherlock stood upright. "I'm perfectly fine, John," he said dismissively. "My body is merely trans-" That was all he managed to say before he collapsed into Harry's waiting arms. With John's help, she lifted Sherlock onto the medical bed, and they left him to sleep.


	3. Rule three: don't be smart

**A/N: Hello again. I am so sorry for the delay in posting this, but I have been ridiculously busy. Thanks so much to everybody who has read this so far, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and please remember to review!**

**Also, a sphygmomanometer is a device for measuring blood pressure, in case you were wondering what the hell was going on later.**

* * *

Sherlock Holmes blearily opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a strange room, which looked similar to a medical bay. The main difference was several machines and contraptions sitting around the room that even Sherlock didn't recognise.

His brain was instantly alert, even if his body wasn't. He attempted to stand up, but his legs betrayed him, and he ended up on the floor. He tried to call for help, but his voice wasn't working. Sherlock tried a few more times to stand up, kicking his legs as if attempting breaststroke. Eventually he gave up and settled for remembering where he was, improbable though it was.

A spaceship. A real, living spaceship. An improbable spaceship, in which he had been severely injured, before being miraculously cured by an alien serum.

Sherlock coughed, and found he was able to let out a small groan. He did so, and then concluded that the acoustics on this spaceship must also be highly improbable, when John and Harry came running.

"Sherlock!" John admonished when they fund him on the floor. "Why can't you ever stay in one place?"

"Right," Harry said, helping John to lift Sherlock back onto the bed, "let's lay some guidelines. Rule one: don't wander off."

By now, Sherlock was able to form a croaky sentence. "I thought rule one was that your father lied," he rasped.

"Rule two: don't question rule one," she told him firmly. "And rule three: don't be smart."

"Smart is who I am," he told her. "Smart protects me."

"Not here," John told him. "We're in charge here. We'll protect you. Now, when you're up to it, which will be in about half an hour, we can discuss things in the console room. Until then, you stay here."

Sherlock threw his head back onto the pillow. "Dull," he murmured.

"Tough," John said, and left. Harry smiled sweetly at Sherlock, and shut the door behind her.

Sherlock sighed and turned his gaze upwards. Hanging above his head was a sphygmomanometer, with strange symbols engraved around the dial which Sherlock couldn't read.

Inspecting the device further, he frowned. With an effort, Sherlock reached upwards and took hold of the device, pulling the dial closer towards him. Upon closer inspection, the dial seemed identical to those on Earth, save for the symbols. He guessed that he could work out what each symbol meant, due to its placement upon the sphygmomanometer.

Less than five minutes later, Sherlock had learned the major Gallifreyan numbers from the dial, and was working his way around the room trying to deduce the meanings of more Gallifreyan symbols. After all, it would surely be useful to understand at least some alien language when travelling with aliens.

-o0o-

An age later, Sherlock was able to stand upright without his head swimming. He left the boring medical room and Turned Left, heading for the control room. He arrived in the doorway, and stood there for a few moments, taking in the control room in more detail. He noticed the metal grating on the floor, and the bronze circles of unknown origin stretching up almost to the top of the curved ceiling, where they gave way to orange panels. Sherlock observed the wires hanging from the ceiling and the coral struts, and the general messiness of the console. He also noticed how the room felt almost organic, as if it was a living, breathing, thinking organism confined in a machine.

John and Harry stood leaning on the console. Both turned to look up at him.

"You're up, then," Harry observed with a touch of coldness.

John elbowed her in the side. "Ignore her. How are you feeling?"

"Better, thank you," Sherlock said, walking down towards them. "Where's my coat?"

John nodded towards Harry. She glared at him, then smiled awkwardly at Sherlock. "Um. About that. You weren't particularly attached to the coat, were you?"

"Where is it?" he inquired, his voice dangerously quiet.

She mumbled something, leaning her back against the console.

"What did you say?" he asked sharply, still advancing towards them.

"I dropped it in a black hole," she said quickly. "Slight accident. Well, I say slight…" she stopped, because Sherlock was standing over her, his tall form looming over her short one.

He frowned. "A black hole?"

"Watch it, Sherlock," John began to warn him.

"How did you get close enough to a black hole to drop something into it?" Sherlock asked Harry curiously, ignoring John.

She paused, and raised an eyebrow at him. "I just lost an article of your clothing in deep space, and you're asking about the physics of it?"

Sherlock stepped back and frowned. "Not good?" he asked, directing the question towards John.

John rolled his eyes. "I'll explain later. We should really get down to business, now you're feeling better."

"Yes, but-"

John spoke over Sherlock, cutting him off. "It seems we have several mysteries here," he began. "First, where our father is, and why he is not in his TARDIS. Second, how the hell you exist," he pointed at Sherlock.

"And third, why our father let the TARDIS redecorate itself like this," Harry interjected.

"Yes…wait, no!" John said. "Third, we find out what happened to Conan Doyle's character. Any questions?"

"Yes," Sherlock said pointedly. "How can you be close to a black hole without falling in yourself?"

Harry sighed. "The TARDIS is a huge source of energy, and creates its own gravitational field, amongst other things. Can we get to the matter at hand?"

"Very well," Sherlock said. "First, I suggest that we…"

John held up his hand, looking awkward. "Sherlock. I know you're used to being in charge, but with respect, this is my ship."

"Our ship," Harry reminded him somewhat indignantly.

"Our ship," he corrected himself, then looked at Sherlock expectantly.

Sherlock looked down, considering, then up at the two siblings. "All right," he conceded. "Your ship."

John breathed an invisible sigh of relief at Sherlock's agreement.

"If you don't mind me asking," Sherlock continued, "where are we now?"

John and Harry shared a grin. "May I do the honours?" she asked.

"You may."

Harry led the way to the door grandly, then turned and smiled at Sherlock. "Mr Holmes, I present to you, the Earth!" She flung the door open, perhaps a touch too dramatically.

Sherlock stood next to her and stared out at…nothing. Nothing, and yet everything he knew. In front of him, amidst a sea of black, was the Earth. From this distance, he could see the planet slowly turning in an endless circle. He could see the moon, tiny next to the giant expanse of the Earth, which itself was dwarfed by the massive sun, far in the distance.

John came and stood behind Sherlock. "See?" he said. "The Earth does go around the sun."

Sherlock didn't even acknowledge that John had spoken. He stood silently, arms by his sides, seemingly struck dumb by the unique sight.

Eventually, he spoke. "I suppose this is normal for you two?"

Harry glanced at John. "Well, I suppose so. Yes," she said.

He nodded and turned away. "In the same way I find London normal and boring, the universe is boring and normal for you. That explains a lot about the way John acts."

"How I act?" John frowned. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock looked back outside the TARDIS. "Once, I pointed out the beauty of the stars, when we were outside at night. You seemed to barely acknowledge it, as if it was nothing new. Now, I've hardly met any humans who fail to be amazed by the universe.

"However, when we drive around London, you are always looking out the window, marvelling at the perfectly ordinary sight of people walking around London, going about their daily business. Surely, at your age, with your experience, they would merely be insignificant creatures to you?"

John blinked. "Very perceptive."

Sherlock smiled thinly. "I try."

"But you're wrong," John continued. "People aren't insignificant ants. They're giants. Humans are by far my favourite species. Sure, some of you are just plain bad. But humans…it's hard to describe."

Harry helped him out. "Humans are one of those species who are just so…so determined, to learn more. So many species just sit on their planet until they die out, not caring, just living their own little lives."

"Or else they try to conquer the galaxy," John added.

"Yes," Harry acknowledged. "But when humans leave the planet, it's for no reason but to explore. To learn more about their little solar system, and later on other galaxies. That's why we love humans."

"Should you be telling me this?" Sherlock asked her. "About the future?"

"Let's just say that you're not the first human in this TARDIS."

His ears pricked up. "'_This_ TARDIS'? There are more?"

John sighed. "That's another conversation for another time, Sherlock. We already have three mysteries, remember? Although the last two seem to be linked."

"Where should we start?" Harry asked, and for the first time, it was clear to Sherlock that John really was in charge. Harry deferred to him, and they both expected Sherlock to do the same. It was going to take some getting used to.

John strode to the TARDIS console. Harry closed the TARDIS door and followed him. He fiddled with some buttons and levers on the console. "Well," he said, "we're going to begin by working out what happened to Dad. Then we're going to see Conan Doyle, and get this mess straightened out. But first," he took a breath and looked at Sherlock, who was glancing upwards to the top of the time rotor, "we're going to take Sherlock Holmes home."

Sherlock's head snapped down to stare intensely at John. His blank stare carried a lot of meaning.

John looked away. "It's too dangerous, Sherlock," he said helplessly in answer to the unspoken question.

"I can handle it, John," Sherlock said finally. "I've faced down serial killers, and psychopaths, and mobsters, and bankers. I think I can handle whatever you've got." The words were mocking, scornful, but the tone was not. Instead, Sherlock spoke slowly and quietly, as if unsure that he was correct.

John sighed, leaning against the console. He ran a hand through his hair, and looked up at Sherlock, agitated. "Christ, Sherlock! You've already managed to crack your head open, and you haven't even left the TARDIS. Look, Harry and me, we can handle it. We've been out there for years. Centuries." He jabbed an angry finger towards the door, then lowered it slowly back down to the console.

"But you…" He stopped and took a breath, then continued. "You're human. You die, that's it. No more Sherlock. And the world needs you, Sherlock."

Sherlock stayed silent for what seemed an age. The only sound in the TARDIS was John's breathing.

Eventually, Sherlock said, "Harry and I."

John frowned. He looked down, then up again. "What?"

"You said 'Harry and me, we can handle it'. You should have said 'Harry and I'."

John sighed deeply. "Christ, Sherlock. Just…" He didn't finish.

Harry coughed quietly from where she had been standing off to the side, wisely not making a sound. "He's right, you know."

"I know he's right!" John snapped at her. She blinked, and he sighed. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Well, for what it's worth," Harry started, walking forward, "I think he should come. We need someone to keep you in check."

This time John ignored her, staring at Sherlock through the time rotor, the curved glass warping the image. "I can't have your death on my conscience, Sherlock. You have no idea, the horrors that are out there." He jabbed a finger towards the door again.

"How about the other humans?" Sherlock asked, almost bitterly. "Was it too dangerous for them as well? Did they all die?"

"How do you know about the others?" Harry asked curiously. John sighed in defeat and stared down at the console.

"It was relatively simple," Sherlock explained. "There were several clues: the way you presented to me the view, as if you'd done it before; the fact that some of the products in your medical bay are from Earth; and the fact that you appear to be wearing Earth clothing, which I'd imagine wouldn't be that clothes your race would normally wear. Quite a tenuous link, I know, but it turned out to be true."

Harry blinked, then looked at John. "I'm keeping him, even if you're not," she told him.

John threw up his hands in exasperation. "Fine," he told her. "Fine. But he's your responsibility, all right? Anything he does, you're accountable."

She nodded once. "Got it."

Sherlock opened his mouth, but John held up a hand. "And," he said, "We do this by my rules. Okay?"

They both nodded.

"All right." John took a breath and turned to Harry. "What do you know about where Dad is?"

Harry took a deep breath, and began to tell the story. "The TARDIS malfunctioned, or so we thought. We were on the trail of a ship that kept circling Earth, looking as if it might land at any moment. You know how it is, John. Protect Earth at all costs.

"Anyway, suddenly this ship started smoking from behind, and falling towards the Atlantic Ocean. Dad, of course, tried to make the TARDIS materialise onto the ship, so he could help the occupants. Except, when we arrived on the ship, there was no one there. It was deserted. We ran a scan, and there were no living creatures except for us."

John felt a shiver run down his spine. "Then what happened?"

"We went exploring. Dad told me to stay in the control room, but I ignored him," she said this with a small grin and a shrug, as if it was bound to happen. "He went one way, and I went the other, and half an hour later I arrived back at the control room. He was nowhere to be seen.

"I waited for him for a while, then got bored and ran another scan, to find out where he was. Only there was nothing. Only one life form on board, and that was me."

John felt another shiver. "He disappeared?"

Harry nodded grimly. "I searched all around the ship, but couldn't work out where he'd gone or anything. There were no exits, no portals to be found. Nothing. So I carefully landed the ship on the moon somewhere in the 1960s, took the TARDIS, and came and found you. End of story."

All three felt as if the temperature in the TARDIS had suddenly decreased, but a quick glance at the thermostat said otherwise. "That's impossible," John said, for the umpteenth time that day.

"Evidently not impossible," Sherlock argued, "since it happened. It is merely highly improbable."

"That's what the original Sherlock Holmes said," Harry said quietly.

"I am the original Sherlock Holmes," said Sherlock Holmes. "I'm not in a book, that's all. I'm real."

"I think I've lost track of what 'real' is," John muttered, leaning one hand on the console. "Look, this isn't getting us anywhere. We're focusing on Dad. Now, this ship. Species of origin?"

"Ah," Harry said. She bit her lip, her normally happy face taut with nerves. "The ship was a dalek ship."

John's hand slipped off the console, and he stumbled before jerking upright. He tried to speak, but his mouth was as dry as a grave.

He cleared his throat. "Dalek?" he croaked out. "The daleks have Dad?"

Sherlock's eyes flicked between the two. "The daleks are bad news?" he guessed.

John slowly turned his head to look at Sherlock. He looked haggard, as though he had aged decades in only a few moments.

John took a breath and began to speak. "A long time ago, many years ago, our people entered into a war, the largest war in the universe. The Time War. Countless people died, men and woman and children. Everybody. It was terrible. The thing is, the war was time-locked, which meant that nothing could escape. Except Dad managed to get out, along with me and Harry. He left us on a safe planet, then went to stop the war."

Harry took up the story. "He managed to end the war, but at a terrible cost: he killed each and every being, from both sides of the war. He committed genocide, and he's never been the same since. So we're the last of our kind, us three. Or we were, until we found this dalek ship. Apparently we weren't the only survivors."

Sherlock nodded thoughtfully. "So it's true then, that you were a soldier?"

"We're a family of soldiers, us and Dad," Harry said. "Dad hates it. He always felt bad for dragging us into the war. What he never understood was that we would have fought, whether he'd wanted us to or not."

"You and your father? How about your mother? I presume, of course, that you had a mother." As soon as Sherlock asked the question, he regretted saying anything; but it was too late to take it back.

There was a moment of terrible silence ad John and Harry exchanged a long look. "She died," John said eventually. "Dad tried to get to her, we all did, but she was too slow. She was killed by a dalek."

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's all right," he said. "She didn't even know she had been found. She wouldn't have felt any pain. Well, not much." He bit his lip and stared into space for a few moments.

"To be honest, I think that was what made Dad do it," Harry said. "He was so angry, at the daleks for killing her, at the Time Lords for fighting; at everything, really. I think that's why he decided to end it, at the greatest cost."

"The loss of an entire species," Sherlock finished.

"It was supposed to be two species," John reminded him bitterly. "Apparently, the daleks managed to escape, Rassilon only knows how."

"I doubt even he would," Harry muttered.

"If the three of you escaped," Sherlock said thoughtfully, "surely a dalek could have got out as well?"

John and Harry both shook their heads. "Impossible," John said.

"Dad sealed up the breach immediately, then went back to that same instant and ended it," Harry explained. "That's what he told me."

"You said the ship had no occupants. Is it possible one ship was left out of the war, and that was what you found?" Sherlock speculated.

More shaking of heads. "The daleks wouldn't do that, they're too devious," Harry told him.

"They'd rather blow up their own ship than leave it vulnerable," John added.

"These daleks," Sherlock said, "what do they look like?"

John turned to the console and typed something in quickly. A picture came up on the screen of a gold metal machine that somewhat resembled a pepper-pot.

"It doesn't look like much," Harry said, "but that is one of the most terrifying, deadly creatures in the universe."

"Creature?" Sherlock asked. "Is it alive? It looks like a robot."

"That's just the shell, the armour," John said. "Inside is a small, weak creature that relies on being a pepper-pot to survive."

Sherlock nodded in understanding. John turned to Harry. "You parked the ship on the moon?"

"Yup," she confirmed. "First time I've ever had to steer a dalek ship. The controls are surprisingly easy."

"Just because you passed Foreign Vehicles with flying colours…" John said, and Harry laughed.

"You had classes in flying other species' vehicles?" Sherlock guessed.

"We had a lot of classes, too many to talk about now," John said. "We need to go to the moon."

Sherlock mentally added that to the rapidly-growing list of sentences he never thought he would hear John say.


	4. The children of the Oncoming Storm

Harry took the controls. The TARDIS spun in space and dematerialised, landing in the dalek ship.

John stepped out first, Harry close behind. Sherlock followed them both cautiously, peering out of the door before joining them in the dalek control room.

He looked around. The room was round and gold, with plenty of shiny, curved surfaces. There were circles everywhere, on the walls, on the floor, in the lighting. The floor sounded like a thick metal as they walked over it, and the whole room was smoother than any Earth surface Sherlock had ever encountered.

He approached the control panel, covered with more round things: lights, button, and screens displaying rotating patterns of circles. John was checking some readouts on a screen above their heads, while Harry was hunting around the walls, pressing on circles and tapping as if trying to find something.

Sherlock decided to go over to Harry. "What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Green box," she said, then added, "Your people call it a black box, I think. Never got the hang of Earth colours. Red alert, indeed," she scoffed, then went back to poking around the walls.

Sherlock gave up, and went over to John. "Don't mind her," he said, "she's just tense because she's worried about Dad." He turned to Sherlock. "Look, no offence, but there's really not much for you to do here. If you like, you could take a look around at the ship? It's perfectly safe, there's only the three of us here. I checked." He tapped the screen above them, and Sherlock nodded.

He walked off quickly, trying not to let either of them see his face, so they wouldn't know how hurt he was feeling at being sent away like one might a child. Sherlock was not used to not being the smartest in a room (unless Mycroft was there, of course), and it irked him especially that John was more knowledgeable than him about something, other than women. He had always seen John as somewhat inferior, at least in intelligence; and to have him suddenly prove to be just as intelligent, if not more so, was discombobulating to say the least.

Sherlock paused when he came across a bubble-shaped window, set deep into the wall of the corridor. Outside, there was nothing but darkness, and the moon's surface. He found if he looked far to the left, he could just see the edge of a large, light-coloured shape in the distance, which he presumed was the Earth, millions upon millions of miles away. Sherlock stared at this sight for a while, one he surely would never see again, before sighing and continuing his trip around the corridors.

He wandered around the ship for a while, at least an hour, contemplating what he had learned about his friend. John had kept a secret from the whole world, even him, for years. He wondered just how much of John's past life was real.

The detective started thinking about what they had said about him being a book character. How much of his life was real? How did he exist in a Victorian book as well as in real life? Was that possible, in any reality?

Then Sherlock saw something that made him stop in his tracks. He froze for a full minute, breathing shallowly; then spun around and hightailed it back to the control room, where John and Harry were.

Sherlock skidded to a halt on the smooth flooring about a foot from the door, then took a breath to compose himself before calmly walking in.

He tapped John on the shoulder. "Yeah?" John said, without looking away from what he was doing.

"There are no daleks on this ship, correct? Just us."

"Mm-hmm," John said.

"These daleks, they are incredibly dangerous, and capable of destroying the universe?" Sherlock asked casually.

"Yep."

"And when they move around, they wouldn't happen to say, 'Exterminate', would they?"

"That's right-what? How do you know that?" John said, turning around in panic. For the first time, he took in Sherlock's flushed face and shortness of breath. Harry turned around as well, staring at Sherlock as if scared of the answer he would give.

"The truth is," Sherlock said cautiously, "I think I just saw one of them. A dalek, I mean." He saw the twin looks of horror on John and Harry's faces, and stopped talking.

"Please tell me you're joking," John said desperately.

Sherlock grimly shook his head.

"How did you survive?" Harry asked.

"I ducked down a side corridor. It didn't see me," he answered.

"Where was it?" John asked. He pulled up a three-dimensional map of the ship on the screen.

Sherlock considered the map, selecting a floor and zooming in upon it. "I went down there," he tracked his route with his finger, "and around that bend. I remember that bend. I think it was here," he said, pointing out a corridor. "Yes, that's right."

"Over the other side of the ship," Harry noted. "You ran all the way back?"

Sherlock nodded. "What do we do?"

John puffed out his cheeks. "I've found nothing," he admitted.

"Me neither," Harry said. "Confrontation?"

John nodded regretfully. "Looks like we'll have to."

Sherlock's eyes flicked from one sibling to the other. "You're going to confront it?" he asked cautiously. "One of the most feared creatures in the universe?"

"How else are we going to find anything out, Sherlock?" John demanded back. "We've got nothing to go on. We have no idea where or when Dad is. All we know is that the daleks may have him. So, don't you think the best thing to do might be ask a dalek?"

"It's not ideal," Harry admitted, "but if Sherlock Holmes has any ideas, I for one would love to hear them."

"I have nothing," Sherlock said. Then a thought occurred to him. "Do you speak the same language as the daleks?"

"The TARDIS has an inbuilt translation filter. Works for everything except Gallifreyan," John said. "So, are we ready to face a dalek?"

"No," Harry admitted.

"Me neither," said her brother. "Let's go." And with that, they stepped out of the control room, prepared to go on a dalek-hunt.

"Hold up a sec," Harry said as they passed the TARDIS. She disappeared inside, returning a few moments later with two large guns. She tossed one to John, and he caught it, stumbling slightly under the unexpected weight.

"Where did you get these?" he demanded. "Dad never allows guns in his TARDIS!"

"There's a room full of weapons, all catalogued by date," Harry explained. "I think the TARDIS likes keeping spoils of war. He's never found the room, but she showed me."

John appraised the gun. "Will this work on daleks?"

"Should do," she said. "They had a picture of a dalek next to them."

John appraised the gun. It was large, large enough that it had to be to be held with two hands, and the barrel resembled a dalek's gunstick. He guessed it had been modified from a dalek somehow. "Do you know where this came from?" he asked.

"No idea," she shrugged. "You?"

"Nope."

Sherlock had been watching the exchange silently, but at this point he spoke up. "Were there only two dalek guns in the room, then?" he asked casually. Too casually.

Harry's eyes flicked guiltily towards him. "Um, yes," she said quickly. "Sorry about that."

He shrugged it off. "Shall we go then?"

"Yes," John agreed, and hurried out. The other two followed close behind.

It didn't take them long to find the dalek. They were walking down the third corridor of the second floor when there was a noise nearby. John motioned for the others to stop, and peered around the corner cautiously.

He jerked his head back and leaned against the wall. "It's there," he mouthed, signalling with his head.

Harry wordlessly held up five fingers, then four, counting down. When she got to zero, she and John leaped out into the corridor with practised timing, levelling their guns at the dalek. Sherlock stood behind them, staring the dalek down and trying not to look too useless.

The dalek didn't notice them at first. It kept rolling towards them until its eyestalk swivelled around to face them. Then it stopped in its tracks, ten feet or so away from them. "Identify yourselves!" it called out in an emotionless, robotic voice.

"John and Harry Watson," John said.

"We are the children of the Oncoming Storm," Harry added.

The dalek seemed to nod in recognition. "You are associates of the Doctor?"

"That's right," John said loudly. "We come in the name of the Doctor."

"You are companions of the Doctor. It is confirmed that companions of the Doctor will show mercy to the daleks."

"Oh, yeah?" Harry asked, and aimed a shot over the dalek's head. A bright beam flew out the barrel of her gun and scorched the corridor wall. It moved backwards slightly as if flinching. "Check your records again," she said. "We're not companions. We're family."

The dalek paused, checking the records. "Negative," it said eventually. "The Doctor has no family."

"Yes, well, he would say that, wouldn't he?" John said impatiently. "Look, our identities don't matter. It's two on one. Three on one," he corrected himself hastily, glancing back at Sherlock. "We've got some questions for you, and _our_ records state that you will answer them, unless you want my sister to shoot lower down next time." Harry raised her gun in confirmation.

The dalek pointed its gun at Sherlock. "You are unarmed," it informed him. "You will be exterminated! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

It was interrupted by another warning shot, this time from John. "Shut it," he told the dalek firmly. "He may be unarmed, but we're not. Now, where is the Doctor?"

The dalek seemed to finally realise that it should answer. "The location of the doctor is unknown," it said haltingly.

"He went missing on this ship," Harry said. "This dalek ship. Am I seriously expected to believe that you don't know where he is?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Er, John?"

"Not now, Sherlock," John said apologetically, not looking around. "Where is he?" he demanded again of the dalek, holding up the gun again.

"The location of the doctor is unknown," the dalek repeated.

"Is that all you know how to say?" Harry demanded.

"John-" Sherlock began to say again, but was cut off.

"Okay," John said. "What is the last known location of the Doctor?"

This time, there was a pause as before the answer, as the dalek checked its internal records. "The last known location of the Doctor is the destruction of the Cult of Skaro," it said. "The current location of the Doctor is unknown."

"Yeah, I got that bit," John said. He puffed out his cheeks, thinking hard.

Sherlock took his pause as an opportunity to speak. He leaned towards John and quickly said, "John, I really feel you ought to know that that was not the dalek I saw earlier."

He nodded absent-mindedly. "Yeah, okay…what?" he demanded, jerking his head back to stare at Sherlock.

"This one has a dent in it," he explained quietly, pointing to the dalek's head. "The one I saw didn't."

Harry had heard their conversation. "How certain are you, on a scale of one to ten?" she muttered, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the dalek.

"Eleven," Sherlock said with certainty.

"Shit," John said. "There's more than one on board."

"You said the Cult of Skaro was wiped out," Harry called to the dalek. "How many were in the cult?"

"The Cult of Skaro was small," the dalek intoned. "Only five thousand daleks. A small fraction of our race!"

"Your race wiped out ours," John said. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you now."

"You are companions of the doctor," the dalek repeated. "You will show mercy, or you will be exterminated! Exterminate!" It began to wave its gun around, pointing it at each of them in turn. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"Go to Hell," Harry said, and squeezed the trigger. There was a flash and a bang, and then the dalek was no more.

Sherlock winced at the explosion. When the smoke cleared, he saw that the dalek had been completely blown apart, with shards of metal and some unpleasant-looking organic matter lying scattered around the corridor. Only the base was left standing.

John looked over at Harry. "Nice shot," he commented.

"Thanks," she said, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily.

John cautiously approached the remains of the dalek. He reached out with one foot and pushed the base away from him. It rolled a few inches before coming to a stop against the wall.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was listening intently to something in the distance. "John, these daleks…they wouldn't have a distress signal, would they?"

John's ears pricked up. He, too, heard a faint 'Exterminate!' sound. "Which way is it?"

Sherlock pointed behind him, the way that they had come. "That way, I think."

All three listened for a few moments. The sound was definitely getting louder.

"Right now, getting away from here is sounding like a good option," John said.

Harry nodded. "And fast."

They took off as one, heading down the way that the dalek had come. John was leading at the front, while Harry took up the rear, turning around every so often to check for approaching daleks. They ran for several minutes, taking as many corners and twists and turns as they could to try and throw the daleks off their trail. As they ran, Sherlock's breathing became ragged, while John's and Harry's remained normal.

With every step, John kept thinking, _this is impossible. There were no signs of life on the ship. No one could enter. No one could leave. How are there daleks on board? They didn't know where Dad is. Where is Dad? Is he still alive?_ These thoughts kept running through his head, over and over again.

Eventually they arrived back in the control room. John tore through the TARDIS door without hesitation, holding it open for Sherlock and Harry before locking it safely behind them. He and Harry leaned against the door, while Sherlock bent over the railing, gasping for breath.

"How?" Harry gasped when she was able. "How did they get onto the ship?"

John closed his eyes and slid his back down the door. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

Sherlock staggered upright. "You said there were no other signs of life on board," he said accusatorily. "You also said the daleks were alive, inside the armour."

"I know," John apologised, eyes still closed as if in pain. "I'm sorry. I put you in danger. You could have been killed. I'm sorry." He sighed and leaned his head back against the door.

-o0o-

After some time sitting in silence, Harry stood up and walked through the console room to the door, and disappeared down a corridor. Sherlock glanced over at John. He didn't appear to be moving, so Sherlock stood up and followed Harry through into the corridor.

The corridors, like the console room, were coloured in oranges and golds, with eerie green lights every couple of feet. Interestingly enough, the corridors seemed to be in a hexagonal shape, yet the doors set into the walls every so often appeared to be flat. Sherlock guessed it was an alien mind trick. He hated guessing.

Sherlock wandered down the many corridors, turning and twisting so often that even he became lost. Sometimes, he would poke his head into a room as he passed. He found an odd collection of rooms, including a swimming pool, an antique-looking library, a modern-looking library, several empty bedrooms, a broom closet, two kitchens, a prison cell, and a large artist's studio.

Eventually he found Harry, sitting on a washing machine in an otherwise empty room. Sherlock could find no explanation for someone having a room containing only a washing machine that did not seem to be connected to anything, but he decided not to say anything. Instead, he hovered just inside the door, clearing his throat awkwardly.

Harry glanced up. "Hi," she mumbled, then went back to tracing patterns on the ground with the toe of one boot.

Sherlock took this as an invitation, and walked cautiously over to the washing machine, perching on one corner. It was a squeeze, but they both fit. "You feel guilty." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," she admitted. "Of course I do. You nearly got killed. You're my responsibility, remember? Anything happens to you, it's my fault. And John would never forgive me if something did." She gave him a small smile. "Although, from what I've seen, you seem quite capable of taking responsibility for yourself." It wasn't a question.

Sherlock pursed his lips and nodded. "I think so," he said. "John doesn't, though. He seems worried about me."

Harry rolled her eyes. "Don't mind him. He gets like that sometimes, when someone's in danger. He always has to play the hero, running around, making everybody else is all right. He never gives a second thought to his own safety, though. If anything, it's us who should be worried about him, not the other way around."

Sherlock thought about John, and the things he had done. Shooting a cabbie on the day after they met. Grabbing Moriarty by the throat by the swimming pool, so Sherlock could escape. Chinning the chief superintendent. Opting to stay in a train carriage to try and stop other people dying, even though he could have saved himself. Storming into a house filled with druggies, to rescue a neighbour he hardly knew. There were so many times in which John had put others before himself, so many times that Sherlock had never given a second thought. Eventually, he answered Harry's statement with a nod.

She continued speaking. "He'll come around, you'll see. But if you ask me, we're getting nowhere with finding Dad. Do you have any ideas?"

He shook his head helplessly, a feeling he was still getting used to. "You're the alien expert," he told her.

Harry smiled sadly. "Not in this case. Anyway, I think John needs to think about something else. What do you think?"

"I'm only human," Sherlock said. "I'm just his flatmate."

Harry smiled sadly again. "No, you're not. Well, you are human, but you're not just his flatmate. You're also his best friend. Look, he hasn't told me much, but from what I can tell he went to Afghanistan soon after he left the Time War. And when he came back, he met you. You helped him to heal, from both wars. He's stubborn, you must know that. Why do you think he let himself be persuaded to keep you on board so easily? I'll tell you why. He needs you, and you need him. That's just how it is."

Sherlock glanced down, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"I remember, you're a sociopath. Well, John cares about you, and you care about him even if you don't know it. Now, come on. I know you have lots of questions. Why don't you ask some of them?"

He considered. "Tell me about Gallifrey," he said eventually. "Please," he added as an afterthought.

Harry's eyes took on a faraway look as she remembered her home of long ago. "The colours are the opposite of Earth," she said dreamily. "Vibrant oranges and reds and golds. There are two suns, but the air never gets too hot or too cold, like magic. And you can lie on the red grass and gaze up at the burnt orange sky as the suns set and the twin moons rise…but you don't care about all that," she suddenly said dismissively.

"Technical facts: it's the home world of the Time Lords, in the constellation of Kasterborous. Two suns because it's in a binary star system, and two moons and a ring system like Jupiter in your solar system. No, Saturn, not Jupiter. That's right." She paused, thinking. "Any other questions?"

"What you said about lying on the red grass…" Sherlock said carefully. "Does John like that as well?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said with a half-smile. "We used to have family picnics on this one hill overlooking the capitol, called Schlenk Rise. The whole planet was beautiful. There were so many different creatures and plants, and nothing ever went extinct. Of course, it's all gone now," she said in a suddenly businesslike tone, bringing them back to the present. She looked back down at her feet, going back to tracing patterns with one foot.

Sherlock watched her for a few moments. "You're writing something," he decided eventually.

She glanced up at him, concentrating on the floor. "I am," she admitted, and went back to writing.

A few more moments passed. "What are you writing?"

"Your name," Harry told him.

"Can I see it?"

In response, she dug in her back pocket and pulled out a small notebook and pen. She clicked the pen, and several sparks shot out of the tip before a nib appeared.

Harry opened the notepad to a random page and concentrated, drawing in large, swirling letters. Sherlock tried to see it, but she held it up so he couldn't see.

After a few moments, she held the notepad out to him. "Here you go."

Sherlock took it from her, the notepad looking smaller in his large hands. He studied the picture. There were circles upon circles, inside other circles, all drawn in one smooth, looping line.

"Interesting," he observed. "So this is what Gallifreyan looks like?"

"Yeah. If it was any other language in the universe, you'd be able to read it," Harry told him. "But Gallifreyan doesn't translate in any form, written or spoken."

"Why is that?"

She frowned. "I don't know. Security, I suppose, so no one can steal the TARDIS. There used to be an instruction manual, written in Gallifreyan. I wonder what happened to it?"

"So, Time Lords," Sherlock said, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from philosophical questions. "Are they biologically different from humans? I mean, if you can live for longer, there must be some differences."

Harry took a deep breath. "There are several," she began. "For one, we have two hearts, which is an excellent respiratory bypass system. But when we do die, we can regenerate into an entirely new body…"

They continued their conversation, in the small room that was completely bare save for one unexplained washing machine. And when they were done, when Sherlock knew all he needed to know and more, they walked together out to the console room, where John stood staring at the monitor.

He looked up when they walked in. "I think I've worked it out," he told them, as if nothing had happened. "The daleks tricked their own system into not counting them as life forms, so they didn't show up on the scans." His voice was thick with contempt for the species.

Harry and Sherlock exchanged a glance. "Then why didn't Sherlock or I see any, when we explored the ship?" Harry asked John. "At different times," she added.

He sighed deeply. "I don't know," he admitted. "But it's the best I can do."

"Maybe if you thought about something else for a while," she suggested. "Leave the daleks alone for a bit." John seemed unconvinced. "Look, I've been thinking," Harry pressed on. "Maybe the two things are interlinked somehow – Dad and Sherlock. I don't know how, but it just feels right, somehow."

John nodded grudgingly. "I agree," he said. "We're getting nowhere fast, and there's no way we can take on the daleks by ourselves. We need to regroup somewhere else, sort it out." He sighed. "I think Victorian England would be as good a place as any, don't you?"

Harry exchanged a triumphant glance with Sherlock. "That's a very good idea, John," she said.


End file.
